Sugarcoated Poem by Mark. A Heathcote

I.
Some day they'll tell me.
We have all the answers.
There'll be no hungry mouths to feed.
You'll no longer require any money.
There'll be no such thing as illness or poverty —
we've defeated every disease,
a machine antigen number crunched in nanoseconds, deletes pathogens
while we're still looking up at the moon.

II.
COVID won't be transmitted by carers coughing
with no relief staff in sight,
told to hold the fort for one more night
while achingly sweating in PPE —
stripping at the door, self-isolating
from a family expecting the familiar,
it'll-be-alright kiss.

III.
Some day they'll tell me.
There'll be no more wars.
Everybody will be content,
as long as someone else
in their principality
is on their knees like a podiatrist with a double hernia,
and they're pampered like a French poodle
or a feline cat with exacting painted claws, a Botox face
that smiles every day like an
Ancient Greek Sculpture —
nothing supple about that clay.
But you'll live forever in immortality
through endless body transfers —
unlike the disastrous Dolly the sheep cloning,
all your fears will be averted,
as if a Golden Fleece were placed upon you.
And yet, like a cling film product, sanitized,
with each procedure, quality goods, processed, packaged, sugarcoated.

IV.
You won't have to worry about oil or gas.
A prevalent wind or hydropower
electricity, there'll be 3D-printed lunar bases,
Moon hotels for limited stays
Mirrors in space that'll capture and direct the sun's rays
Implant chips added to human brains
Yes, it all sounds a little magnolia, a little baize.
But the world of tomorrow
Will have cloning updates
Time Travel: Accessing memories of the past —
each memory returned, a celluloid, kaleidoscopic moment
you can taste and touch, like a bird on the wind
locked in a storage battery.

V.
Some day they'll tell me.
We've solved every problem imaginable, and I'll laugh.
that they're even outsourcing digital spaces to store my emotional burdens.
That creates a world of emotional and mental numbness.
Sadness and grief becoming a luxury you can ill afford
to prove you are still alive —
a receipt, physically stamped on the body like a warrior's tattoo,
a passport back to melancholy.

VI.
A funeral with no emotional content, synthetic flowers, no tears —
bodies cremated to dust,0.2 milligrams of pure gold,
lithium, tech metals —
a price tag on each toe.

VII.
And yet with even all of that
I'll long for yesterday, precisely —
nothing tastes like grandmother's cooking —
gammon and cabbage, potatoes,
her starched, wrinkled hands
making a trifle out of poverty —
powdered custard in a mixing bowl,
a tin of mixed fruit,
while I'm left licking a spoon of cream
with sprinkles on top.